The Romantic Victorians

The Romantic Victorians
Finding a similarity between the Romantic era and the Victorian era can be quite a challenge because of the all the differences between them. “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a great example of a literary work of the Romantic era because of the various themes that compose it. The “The Lady of Shallot” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the Victorian era is a poem that can portray the society that shaped the era. Both poems share the theme isolation because the main characters in the poem are isolated from others.
The Romantics era lasted from the year 1798 to the year 1834 and is an era full of changes. In this era the artists had freedom to express what they felt through their arts of work. Therefore, the works of art and the music during this period are truly expressive. Nationalism is also widely expressed by many artists during this era. This era is mostly shaped by many talented artists that became recognized nationally and worldwide. The classical rules were broken in this era and no more political oppression subsided in the streets of England. The air smells like freedom to the people living there, and new boundaries were open to those who decided to pursue their dreams. The artists give life to their imagination in their published works of art. “In various forms, Romances shared a feature that Victorians would take as exemplary of the literary (if not the polemical) imagination of the age: a turn even an escape form the tumultuous and confusing here-and-now” (The Romantics and Their Contemporaries 11). The Romantic era gave the world the supernatural and the mysterious side of art. Creativity also is a word that defines the Romantic era because it gave life to its lit...

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...by the Victorian society because she did not have a husband. Therefore, she is worthless to society because she cannot contribute to it. Coleridge’s isolation is not judged by the society in his era and it does not last as long as the lady’s isolation. Another factor that influenced the theme is that the poem “The Lady of Shallot” is fiction, while the poem “This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison” is nonfiction. Coleridge’s poem is more like a dairy entry while Tennyson’s poem is more like a fairy tale. “The Lady of Shallot” can be compared to the fairy tale Rapunzel because both characters were trapped in a tower due to a curse.

Works Cited
“This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Eds. David Damrosch and Kevin J. H. Dettmar. 4th ed. Vol. 2A “The Romantics and Their Contemporaries.” New York: Pearson / Longman, 2010. 561-3. Print. .